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Sunday, June 03, 2007

Front Line Assembly, April 23, 2007, Pyramid Cabaret, Winnipeg

3.5/5

Openers were Synkro and Distorted Memory, a duo, were excellent with plenty of atmospheric techno meets growling vocals. Seems like an odd combination but it worked and it sounded really good. I tried to buy some of their CDs, but they were sold out at the merch table.

Veterans Front Line Assembly came with an actual drummer and while louder, they didn't sound quite as good. FLA have two keyboardists, one vocalist, a guitarist and a drummer. Together, they make industrial-techno music, occasionally with some vicious, razor sharp and crunchy thrash metal guitar playing. The Metallica influence is everywhere.

FLA have an enormous catalogue of material to select from, but even so, some of the tunes just seemed weak, definitely lacking the ability to impress. On the other hand, a minority of what they played was brilliant and well worth the $21 price of admission.

Most disappointing about the evening was the lack of people for what is surely one of the world's pre-eminent industrial techno bands. I would guess that there was less than 200 people there, maybe even less than 150. Okay, it was a Monday night, but still, FLA should draw about 2000 people in Winnipeg. They should be able to sell out the Burt easily.

I saw a 40-something couple from last Friday's Interpol show. There were some folks in their 50s and 40s but most of the fans appeared to be 20-something.